21st
Rob Anderson was A1 on The Wall Street Journal yesterday, and he does not believe in bikes:
Cars always will vastly outnumber bikes, he reasons, so allotting more street space to cyclists could cause more traffic jams, more idling and more pollution. Mr. Anderson says the city has been blinded by political correctness. It’s an “attempt by the anti-car fanatics to screw up our traffic on behalf of the bicycle fantasy,” he wrote in his blog this month.
Mr. Anderson’s would probably be fuming at the District’s recent pro-pedestrian, “bicycle fantasy”-esque efforts that inconvenience car commuters.
Despite most cyclists calling him a nut, his dissent has value in the form of quality control. I don’t know the details besides the few gleamed from the Journal’s story, but I’m somewhat surprised San Francisco wouldn’t conduct an environmental-impact review before installing bicycle amenities.
On the other hand, The Washington Post is reporting today that Montgomery County may nix the bike path to be built along side a new outer-Beltway highway due to environmental concerns. Because after you’ve constructed six lanes of asphalt for 12 miles, any more and the environment cries uncle.
Arlington’s shared-use trail along I-66 is great for commuters and cycle access to the city, with so few at-grade crossings to slow you down. But frankly I pity anyone who bikes next to I-66 during a summer rushhour. Physical excercise + code red air quality day + proximity to major exhaustway = yuck, cough, wheeze.
